


Slow Thaw

by ladysisyphus



Category: Final Fantasy X
Genre: Blitzball, M/M, and pining, so much pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:15:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21712861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysisyphus/pseuds/ladysisyphus
Summary: Auron hates Jecht.
Relationships: Auron/Jecht (Final Fantasy X)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 37





	Slow Thaw

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Drowner](https://archiveofourown.org/works/799458) by [ladysisyphus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysisyphus/pseuds/ladysisyphus). 



He'd done what the monks of his childhood would have suggested and meditated on his dislike of the man, in the hope that such mental gymnastics might help him to recognise even this reprobate as a beloved and valuable child of Yevon. Yet even hours spent concentrating under a cold waterfall had not convinced him to like Jecht. In fact, they'd put him in an even worse mood, and now he sat shivering around the campfire, waiting in an unexpectedly cool evening wind for his clothes to dry.  
  
"By this time, we were thirty points down, and the crowd there wouldn't've pissed on us to put us out if we'd been on fire!" Jecht laughed at his own story, and to make matters even worse, Braska laughed with him. "And my wife and kid were there, and I told the coach, my _two-year-old_ can stop a ball better than our goalie can!"  
  
He was considering making a written list of all the things he hated about Jecht, and the only thing that stopped him was the thought of how sad Braska would be if he ever found said list. Braska, bless him, wanted only for his two guardians to get along, much in the same way, Auron supposed, a loving parent would try to reconcile two feuding children. But Braska was compelled by his status to seek out and embrace the good in everyone's heart -- or, as Auron assumed was the case here, to make it up when there was none.  
  
"And I would've done it, too, if I didn't think my wife would've divorced me on the spot!" The two of them laughed amongst themselves, the married men who understood the ways women worked. "And the coach said, what do you mean the goalie, I'm gonna substitute that kid for _you_ if you can't keep the ball on the right side of the court!"  
  
He hated Jecht's absurd and obviously fabricated stories about being some big-name sports hero. He had hated Jecht's drunken laugh, but was coming to realise that he now hated Jecht's sober laugh even more. He hated Jecht's stupid tattoo on his stupidly muscular chest that he was too stupid to wear a shirt over. He hated the way Braska seemed to hang on every ridiculous word out of Jecht's ridiculous mouth.  
  
"So what I told him then is, you give that boy ten or fifteen years, and you're damn right you'll be substituting him for me!" Jecht's roar grew a little soft at the end, and he exhaled, poking at the coals with a stick he'd picked up off the ground. The firelight reflected off dark eyes that looked a thousand years distant. "Wonder if he's doing all right. Eating all right. Keeping up with his practice and all. Never did get a chance to teach him how to breathe the water."  
  
He hated Jecht's soft spot for his son that made it impossible to keep hating him. "...How do you learn something like that?" Auron asked, unable to stop the question from slipping out of his mouth, in that moment looking at anything _but_ the smile he knew sat on Braska's face at the suggestion the more cantankerous of his chidren might not be made entirely of spite and granite.  
  
"It's easy," said Jecht, looking over the flames at his fellow guardian, the ridiculous mouth Auron hated curled up at the ends into a grin. "You just find someone you trust more than anything else in the world and have 'em hold you under until you start to drown. And then you don't drown."  
  
He hated how Jecht made the impossible sound effortless. "Oh," said Auron, deciding that now was a wonderful time to see if his socks were dry.  
  
That night he dreamed of Jecht's strong, scarred hands, palms flat against Auron's own bare chest, pressing him down into the deep pool beneath the waterfall. Even in his dream, he knew he should struggle, make some protest for his life. But there was no fear, only the heavy warmth of Jecht's body weighting him down, and so he closed his eyes and waited for the water to fill his lungs. 


End file.
